


Real Lady Killer

by Oh_well_its_me



Series: Ouma Month [10]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Denial of Feelings, Hanahaki Disease, Multi, Talent Swap (Danganronpa)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oh_well_its_me/pseuds/Oh_well_its_me
Summary: Ouma Month: 06 Talentswap* AU +15 Canon Divergent AU + 22 Fashion AU/Passion + 23 Hanahaki + 27 Paranoia + 29 Obsession + 30 Sacrifices* only Ouma and Shirogane are sort of swapped and adjusted to their personalitiesA little diffrent killing game from Shirogane's POV. A lot of unrequired feelings. Really, maybe more than blood spilled.Endgame saiouma and tenmaki, but neither is very in-your-face.Sorry, I couldn't make her evil or insane, she's just there, doing her work, idk, maybe that's better
Relationships: (one-sided) Oma Kokichi/Shirogane Tsumugi, Chabashira Tenko/Harukawa Maki, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, Other One-Sided Relationships
Series: Ouma Month [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768969
Kudos: 48
Collections: Kokichi Ouma Month 2020





	Real Lady Killer

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: Rantaro isn't included in the list of characters because Tsumugi doesn't even acknowledge him as a character in her game, just an obstacle, it's a similar situation with Korekiyo, he... let her describe it ;)  
> fun fact number 2: ever heard of that "Harem protagonist, but he's gay and doesn't care" (I think it was a comic? I have a vague memory of one page)? well, it's been an inspiration  
> also: I swear, Tsumugi isn't homophobic, she just doesn't think of them as people and treats shipping as a part of the marketing and characters having positive or dramatic interactions = shipping material, she's just not taking their actual feelings in consideration and only cares about how audience will perceive them, while knowing that a lot of het ships will sell and she knows her fandom and therefore is aware that people who want gay ships will make them even when canon gives them nothing, so she just doesn't think about that, in fact she's so busy trying to cater to straight audiences that she doesn't have the time to worry about having hanahaki, she once mentions that wlw ship should be easy to ignore and that's because she has guidelines from her superiors for it to be this way, you know, not to upset anyone who doesn't like it

Making last minute changes was risky, but she'd rather deal with complications later on during the game than have the whole season ruined because of leaks. Huge leaks, the information about the antagonist and mastermind are essential to the suspense. And the suspense is essential to a good Danganronpa season. Maybe she's just paranoid, but she really can't afford to fuck it up.

To confuse the viewers she's going to swap their roles a little bit. Protagonist with the antagonist. Her talent with his, well, indirectly to put the legitimacy of the leak in question.

Instead of a cosplayer he'll be a model. An even closer reference to Enoshima Junko. He has the looks to be. Except for his height. Would making him wear heels be too much?

Herself... she was in no way fit for a leader role, she was supposed to be a background character nobody pays attention to. Perhaps she could re-use the Ultimate Affluent Progeny, it would make for a quirky reference to how she was supposed to do cosplay and she would look damn good in a suit. Hell yeah, she would run this show!

Oh. OH HOLY SHIT, THAT'S BRILLIANT! The new layer of irony, the foreshadowing, mocking the viewer, lulling everyone into belief that's too obvious.

Shirogane Tsumugi, the Ultimate Showrunner.

And it's time to get it running.

* * *

When she wakes up in a locker she's wearing the dress she was originally designed to, but her hair is in a fancy up-do and heavy make up implies she's meant to show her face on TV. Bigger alterations were made to the Ultimate Model since he can't run around school looking like a clown, he's still extravagant though.

The first time she sees him is in the gym and she's way too pleased with herself taking note that he's in the center of the attention, eyes of the majority of the group on him while he pretends not to notice. She knows he's pretending, the smug aura around him says it all.

He's observant and smart, but she's in control, he'll play the role she puts him in, the antagonistic Supreme Leader would be a perfect fit, but she'll mold him into the oblivious protagonist. _Just. Because. She. Can._ Using his wit against him, turning his self-isolating ways into a tool to keep him out of the loop until she wants him to learn more. Yes, with his tendency to work alone and distrust the group he'll be like a puppet in her hands.

And the shipping range this season! This is going to bring in so much profit.

An emotionally unavailable protagonist with the cast pining after him, _no! Fighting for him_ , except for few side ships, classical one wlw pairing that doesn't seem mutual so people can ignore it if they want to, one cliche "he helps her open up, isn't that lovely?" she didn't want to have in her season, but there's a high demand for this kind of thing, one horny character for jokes in bad taste, at least she was allowed to combine it with the one that gets humiliated for fanservice, so there's only one character in her cast she can't stand.

* * *

Turns out she'll be left without a decent antagonist. Can't say she didn't expect it, but it's going to cause trouble and a waste of so much potential this cast held. With the traits she was given Akamatsu was always a possible killer, that could have made for a really good plot twist if they were going with the original script.

Now at least it can be said that she took out the obstacle. Without him the game can continue smoothly. Also the development of the Ultimate Detective is looking interesting. Those two still got quite close in the prologue, but with the tweak to Akamatsu's character that was supposed to make her the antagonist she didn't make as much of a positive impact.

At the end of the trial instead of a promise he's left feeling betrayed. This Akamatsu believed that it's better not to create a scene by revealing the sob story about her noble intentions. She failed, nobody needs to know that. It'd be pointless and only serve for gaining pity she didn't want. Leaving the group angry and with their guard raised up was definitely more beneficial in her eyes.

So, in a way, she still manages to paint herself as a villain. It's way too early for one, but oh well.

Shirogane grits her teeth, when her protagonist calls the pianist "not boring". It's a high praise from him and something she knows will never refer to her plain self.

That's just how it is, he's going to say something like that to honor every person who dies, because that's what protagonists do. The only one he wouldn't do this for is her, but that's what she signed up for. It's fine.

It's certainly not sympathy for the blonde, since she saw many executions similar to this and didn't feel this way, but her throat feels sore, some part of her heart drops in unease.

* * *

Motive videos are another classic. Originally the target was Hoshi's will to live, but... She observed the inventor act differently than intended with worry. The audience probably will make some stupid theory about the mastermind being envious of the blondes, because that's Enoshima's hair color, but she wants her gone. Not just because she hates the pervert characters, but Iruma was just not supposed to get along with Ouma.

They were meant to bicker and call each other names for comedic relief! But now that he's a model she's suddenly trying to be nice to him. This goes so far, she basically forgets about the robot. How could she? Yeah, Iruma was way off her script. Time to remove her from the game board.

Forget the motives, they all got mixed up anyway. Second murder will be driven by jelousy.

It's noticeable that Ouma took a liking to pestering Tojo during meals. He even made her feed him once, but backed off when it didn't embarrass her like he expected. Occasionally she would blush, but it was hard from him to get a reaction out of her, so he took it as a challenge.

She could see Iruma giving the maid a side eye from time to time. That wasn't enough to lead to action, though. A little set up would initiate a confrontation between them.

She puts letters under both of their doorsteps. Kind reminders to leave Ouma Kokichi alone because someone else already has eyes set on him. One signed "Miu <3", the other "T.K.", both carrying passive-aggressive energy.

What she could not predict is that a third person walked in on the fight between them and took the fatal hit to the head while trying to separate them.

She chokes on her tea, sitting in the hidden room when one of the monitors shows that Yumeno has died. She coughs up a flower when she clears her throat. Fuck. Yumeno was mostly useless anyway, but the useless character is supposed to survive, and she hasn't had her character growth arc yet!

This will be an interesting case though, so it just might balance it out. Basically no evidence and they're both guilty. Uh oh, they're trying to co-operate and hide the body. Guess she doesn't have to worry about evidence then. Foolish culprits, always doing the same mistake -overdoing it. A simple murder would be unsolvable, but they incriminate themselves by complicating it.

* * *

Once again class trial doesn't go as she would wish it to. And yet the result isn't surprising, she just wanted it to go differently for personal reasons.

After going over all the details of the case is clear that the two Ultimates had a part in this scheme.

For a bit they try to defend themselves, then shift the blame when it doesn't work.

Monokuma declares he'll only execute one, the decision is in the voters hands.

Tojo offers herself up, claiming she failed as a maid letting her selfish desires get the best of her and her talent isn't as useful as Iruma's in attempts to escape. Other crap like that, so the class votes for her and Iruma gets to live.

Well, she's still going to suffer consequences. Ouma looks at her with such hatred as he says "Oh great, now we have not one, but two killer girls in our group." and outs Harukawa's talent. It fills Tsumugi with joy to see Iruma wilt under his harsh gaze.

In a second she has to stop herself from screaming, the sight of Harukawa choking her protagonist paralyzes her with fear. The Ultimate Astronaut steps in, he only does so to prevent "Harumaki" from becoming the next culprit, but she's still glad. Maybe keeping that cliche side ship was a good idea.

* * *

This outcome of the second case complicates the plans for the third one. Devastated Tenko unknowingly also lost her purpose of giving Yumeno character development. It means she might as well not die, at least for now.

The problem of Angie's student council still stands. It looks like without a magician to protect Tenko still joined it, actually getting closer to Yonaga in search for comfort.

Shinguji is planning his seance seesaw murder all according to script and will definitely end up killing Angie like planned, but will Tenko still offer to get under the cage when Yumeno isn't there? Will he ask Shirogane to do it? Maybe she shouldn't let the seance happen after Angie's dead.

She almost does that. She prepared for an attempt to kill Iruma herself with the intent to apply the rules "first come, first served" when there are two murderers and "more than two cannot be killed per one class trial".

But she realized they need the evidence from the seance room to solve Angie's murder and gives up. Her fears come true when Tenko wants to talk to Angie and obviously won't go under the cage because of it. Shirogane has to.

She knows the trick. Surviving is a little bit more important than having a double murder, so she slips in under the loose board.

Instead of pushing her onto the blade the seesaw effect slaps her ass. Oh well, she's going to have him boiled alive for this.

Oooh, somebody's looking nervous when she says she accidentally found herself falling through a loose board and finding dried blood underneath.

* * *

She can already imagine the hate fans will throw at that class trial all over social media. No double murder, no mystery, no nothing. It's so obvious who's the killer from the beginning. It's the shortest and most unsatisfying third trial ever. 

Looking at positives, keeping her act up is easy, since she really is upset. 

Sure, he was designed to be the serial killer, with the creepy floor, literally as a package for the double murder chapter, but the script never entailed putting her in danger of becoming a victim and the plot twist about his motive was so gross. She almost quit when the team pressed for her to include it.

The best she could do with it was add subtle hints of abuse in his free time events with the protagonist. Still nauseating.

Nobody seems to have the words to comment what happened. Shockingly, Harukawa acts out of character and tries to comfort Tenko who's in full blown despair, mumbling about everybody who she gets close to dying, when the other girl puts a hand on her shoulder.

The physical contact seems to shake the aikido master out of the trance. Harukawa is whispering something to her, but Shirogane can't hear what.

* * *

This is the point where the pace should pick up, but instead she takes a moment to pause and think.

There's ten pieces on the board. And her flowers, seventeen bloodied violets she put in a mug since she doesn't have a vase of the right size. It'd feel wrong to throw them away, even when they become wilted.

According to the scheme that's already broken the gentle giant should die in this case.

With how things are going both Chabashira and Harukawa will have to make it to the list of the survivors, the latter was always meant to and Tenko will take Himiko's place.

It's an unwritten rule that those who lost their love interest tend to survive, and well, Momota is not going to make it if the illness he was given has anything to say about it. Also they're down to four girls and six guys, while Iruma and Tsumugi cannot get on the list.

Speaking of Iruma, she spends most of the time locked up in her lab, working on inventions Ouma asked for before he stopped talking to her. Hoping to earn forgiveness, hmm? And they had four out five free time events done before she fucked up, too. Boohoo, poor Iruma.

Let's ignore that he did only two of Shirogane's free time events. He didn't do any of Momota's and only one of Harukawa's. And that was only to annoy the assassin, while spending time with Tsumugi he was nice, like for his standards kind of nice, but still.

He had completed those of K1-B0 to robot's dismay and was close to completing them with Tojo before she died. He also did three of Angie's and Hoshi's.

At the moment she could see him complete the last one with the detective, gaining his prize. 

Good thing, that the detective didn't know Monokuma was giving an example of his underwear as said prize to the model. He would be so embarrassed.

He turned out to be a decent sidekick character, always useful in the investigations, becoming close friends with the protagonist and helping him in his character development.

Yeah, Saihara was a survivor and fan favorite material, right from the first draft. He could even be a replacement protagonist in the scenario where Akamatsu was one in the beginning.

Reading fans gushing about how the Ultimate Model was becoming more honest with the Ultimate Detective and Saihara was more accepting of Ouma's lies, understanding that they can be used for good momentarily put a smile on her face. Then she coughed up a record amount of flowers.

Oh well. Good for them. The way her protagonist smiles at the other boy is so cute, they're such good friends.

Back to planning deaths, guess she's going to have the maximum set of survivors. Six, because killing off Hoshi now would just upset people, he was so willing to die earlier, but the protagonist's fiery speech got him motivated to do better.

She had to chase away a few tears herself when she remembered his words.

"Look, Hoshi-chan, you're not doing anyone any favors by putting yourself down like this. You claim that it's best not to bother with you, but I'd beg to differ. People choose to care about you, you can't make the decision for them.

You're not worse than anyone here, the past is irrelevant now that we're living in this dome, think of it as a fresh start in a new world, it's small but still.

If you can't force yourself to go back to doing what you once loved just pick up a new hobby. Talk to people. Talk to me. Live. Just... stop wasting your life.

Thinking that you might die or go back to prison any moment shouldn't make you give up. You're not a dead man walking. We all can die any moment in this place, so we're on equal ground here. All that means is that we should live our lives to the fullest, not to die with regrets.

Do you really want to spend those days of freedom making yourself miserable? I know this place is kinda limiting, but... wouldn't you want to go and stuff your face with ice cream just because you can now? Huh?"

In the following free time event Hoshi did indeed eat ice cream. And viewers ate that up.

So the list of characters okay to kill off consisted of: Iruma, Momota, Gokuhara and Tsumugi herself. Yeah, making at least two more sensible cases with that is going to be hard.

But she has an idea, it's cruel, but considering it's the fourth chapter it means that it's perfect.

Wait, she forgot that the robot is supposed to die in her execution too for _dramatic sacrifice to break the dome_ effect. Director's idea, she'd voice that this sucks and it's predictable that the audience will boo at the pointless sacrifice, but she sort of wants to keep that job. Staying in Team Danganronpa requires sacrifices, it's like a free trial of masterminding, how much you're going to give up to appeal to people.

* * *

Monokuma announces the new motive. Momota's sickness. Promises that after murder occurs he'll be given medication.

It gives Harukawa the biggest motive, but there's plot armor protecting her from becoming blackened so she'll be fine. Physically at least. She kinda grew closer to Tenko now anyway, she won't be alone.

Gonta also has an immediate reaction, trying to offer himself as a sacrifice while also belittling himself for not being useful otherwise.

Hoshi looks like he wants to say something, but Ouma gives him a silencing look before moving onto scolding Gonta for his idea.

Momota is uncharacterically silent through all this. She almost feels sympathy for him.

When she came up with the idea of his illness she didn't know how it was to be coughing up blood, it just looked dramatically enough.

Now she wouldn't choose something so painful and disgusting, the taste of blood in her mouth mixed with pain making her cringe every time she swallowed.

Following days are full of tension and arguing. Harukawa can't look at Momota and only really talks with Chabashira. Once she attempts to strangle Ouma, Tsumugi "accidentally" walks in on that and makes a scene. She gets to play the nurse afterwards. The fluster makes breathing even harder. The cough doesn't get worse, it's more like her lungs filled up. It hurts.

There's little time. She mentions Harukawa's attempt to Gonta in a very _I am so scared and need to vent_ way. It's innocent.

The next day he is found dead.

* * *

The trial is horrible. Fans will love it.

Everybody's yelling over each other. Blaming themselves for not looking out for him. Accusing of driving him to that point.

Either way, it's obvious this was a suicide, yet no one says it.

Somebody votes for Maki at the end, it could be Kokichi himself, even though he just with little help from Shuichi proved she couldn't be guilty.

Monokuma gives the promised medicine, but reveals this will only ease the symptoms and won't save Momota.

Later that night she has a nightmare about the final trial that is yet to come. Her protagonist calling her out with disgust. She wakes up in cold sweat and vomits all over the bed. It's mostly clumps of wilted violets and blood.

* * *

The idea of Harukawa Maki being in any way nurturing was supposed to be ironic. Her choosing to introduce herself as a child caregiver getting a laugh out of a viewer.

Now she's dotting, not letting Momota over-exert himself. With Tenko's help, but the aikido master keeps reminding she's only doing this to assist Maki.

Tsumugi sips on her smoothie and wonders when those two moved to the first name basis.

Exposing the astronaut's illness gave her an excuse to prepare smoothies, saying something irrelevant like "I just like them, but they're good for sore throat too." and remain unsuspicious.

Kiibo is telling Hoshi some story about his professor, while the other eats breakfast and only stops from time to time to nod along, showing he's still following with the story.

Ouma is leaning on Saihara as they read together, already done eating.

It's a peaceful morning, a quiet one, as they tend to be after the trials. That is until Iruma barges in.

The inventor avoided meeting everyone in the dining hall for a while now, honestly, she was in isolation for most of the time since the second trial.

The blonde trips over her words, shamefully retracing from self-praises that slip out of her mouth out of habit. It's painful to listen, so Tsumugi tunes her out, she knows what she has to say anyway.

She's prepared for this. Iruma has electrohammers ready and wants them to give the Death Road of Despair another try.

Shirogane has a Flashback Light she made at 3AM when she couldn't fall back asleep and was struck with sudden inspiration and also a visual of a post-apocalyptic world at the end of it.

* * *

The weapons work perfectly on the traps. They get to the end practically in no time.

Flashback Light gets ignored in the favor of opening the exit, but that's alright.

The effects are so good even she feels as if what they see was real. A wasteland. Sleeping gas starts affecting them, pretending to be the toxic atmosphere on earth.

When they wake up the door is once again sealed closed. An argument breaks out.

They're already accusing Iruma of leading them on purposefully. Harukawa mutters about suspecting it to be a trap from the beginning. Kiibo tearlessly cries, clearly panicking. It looks weird. Saihara doesn't seem to be quite _there_ yet, blankly staring at the door. Momota looks defeated.

Guess, she has to point it out herself.

Nobody objects to turning it on right there, since they're already all together.

The pieces of the puzzles come together. The tragedy. Rebuild of Hope's Peak. Meteors. Spread of the virus that came with them. One of the Remnants of Despair amongst them.

Iruma Miu, the one who got away with murder, the very same one who had no one close in the group, the one who was capable of creating Monokumas and mechanisms used in executions, it so happens that also the one with similar appearance to Enoshima Junko.

It all made enough sense, she was glad she could reuse some scraps from original script.

Of course Harukawa instantly flips out her dagger. She growls at everyone to leave, so she can take care of it. It being a terrified Iruma who doesn't dare make a sound with a blade next to her neck.

So Tsumugi squeaks and runs out of the tunnel, she can hear only Kiibo instantly following.

Tenko tries to argue, but the assassin really shuts her up with "Because I love you and I don't want you to see it." Like wow, she knew Harukawa was capable of dramatic love confessions, in the script she was meant to confess to Momota right before his execution, but damn. Director will be sending an angry email about it to her in an hour.

Saihara drags Ouma out. There's no better word for it, the model doesn't even resist, he's completely lost in thought.

Hoshi comes out next, explaining that Momota said he can handle it alone and more people only escalate the situation.

So there's three people at the scene. All the _right_ people. She's about to leave for the secret room, not seeing the point of standing around the hole in the ground when Ouma finally speaks.

\- Don't you think it's weird how she just... you know, told on herself out of nowhere? What's the point of this memory light? It only..."

So he realized the thing about Flashback Lights or is close to it. That's great, they're short on time. It's just for the best if the final trial won't go in circles for hours when they figure out barely relevant stuff like this.

Saihara must have understood what he meant by that too, because his eyes widened and he ran back to the scene.

Well yeah, she has to get to the monitors quickly and watch how it goes down.

* * *

Finally, long overdue, but Iruma is dead. None of the people who knows how she died is keen on revealing the truth, not that her killer wants to win the game either. 

This case is stupid, definitely lacking the drastic and confusing elements of typical fifth case, but it doesn't bother her anymore. She's a little lightheaded. It's fine, it's all whatever.

Ouma gets Saihara to talk in a manner that reminds her of getting a small animal to trust you. They're so soft for each other, it makes her lungs burn in pain.

After the wall of silence is broken this way they all crumble easily.

When Saihara rushed back Maki already stabbed Iruma twice. He managed to stop her and explain that Iruma cannot be the mastermind, specifically because of the Flashback Light. Meaning that murder would end in a class trial.

Momota, who kept on trying to persuade her into stopping, begged for her to live then. Knowing his illness will kill him no matter what, he at least wants his sidekick to live on. So he convinced Harukawa to let him finish it.

Instead of a confession their goodbye consists of a bear hug and just as much crying.

* * *

Execution knocked off Kiibo's antenna, so they're back on a scripted part. The last investigation. 

She faints at some point of it and is awoken by Monokuma calling for everyone to come to the fountain. She's swaying a little when walking, but she can get through this trial. And then... And then it's over.

Maybe it's sad she'll never confess, maybe it's just what she deserves for being obsessed with Danganronpa. Who knows.

What an unsatisfying ending. She could have stayed on the costume crew.

The votes come in. He's angry, but refuses to even look at her, unlike in her nightmare.

* * *

Tsumugi waves to the audience as the sky falls on her head, because this is her show.


End file.
